AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire is like Mad Men but with computer nerds

When you think about the story of Silicon Valley and the rise of personal computing, the phrase “sex charged spy thriller” might not be the first thing that pops into your head. Still, AMC’s new show Halt and Catch Fire, set to premiere June 1st, brings those two concepts together with style across 10 episodes.

It’s a sort of Pirate of Silicon Valley story, but with a sexier cast and (it seems) more dramatic corporate intrigue. The simple destruction of friendships and formation of corporate rivalries isn’t enough to satisfy viewers used to The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, so the stakes seem to have been raised to include everything from industrial espionage to outright violence.

Halt and Catch Fire takes place in Dallas, Texas in the year 1983 — the so-called “silicon prairie.” This smaller community really did exist, and contributed a fair amount to those early years of rapid, grassroots development. The time period is a big player in this show, and not just because antiquated computer technology is the primary set dressing. Hair, clothes, cars, music, and the style of speech all come to the fore as AMC seems to try to make a Mad Men-style period piece set a few decades later.

Where the ’50s and ’60s were somewhat defined by the changing nature of work and of business, the ’80s were largely defined by changing technological standards. Just as Don Draper sits at the forefront of a new relationship between company and customer, the nerds modding Apple II circuit boards were among the first to witness the revolution that was coming.

The show has easy potential for social commentary — perhaps too easy. Shows about technology tend to fall into cheese territory even if written by genuinely knowledgeable people; the didactic requirements of storytelling make it difficult to communicate the complex ideas of computing science without either boring the audience or condescending to them. Luckily, the show seems as though it will focus on the dark, troubled relationships between the characters.

AMC has released a quick mini-doc about the show:

AMC seems to have done a good job of finding people who can be attractive while credibly pulling off ’80s hair and clothes, and looks like (roughly) credible computer nerds. There are some obvious character riffs on images like a young, bearded Steve Jobs, but if they’re smart they’ll steer clear of any direct Apple or Microsoft allegories.